Bounteous Garbage

Another great day in the bins…I was riding home from a screenwriting class on a bike Perfectly Unsuited For Gleaning (my roadie-Cunningham). This is the God-I’m-Late bike, a lightweight –a mon avis, 21 lbs is light–fleet non-utility bike that gets me to College of Marin in twenty minutes–close to my Bersonal Pest.

Of course, that’s assuming I hit the lights just right, or uh…shave time with socially-frowned-upon Illicit Momentum Protocols which can enrage car-bound witnesses, thereby inciting Irrational, Violent Venting Behaviors.

Then, three hours later with all the time in the world…I wonder if I can resist ogling the garbage. My deeply embedded peek-a-boo dumpster-checking habit is tough to break when the rewards are so consistently great.

I think: dress in good clothes, ride the race bike; that way, you won’t be able to carry anything.

Naah…the Pavlovian lattice (I don’t want to explain) exerts its effect, and I leap off the bike. No traffic, that’s good. Up go the sleeves of winter wool coat #14 (some day ask to see my collection) — and hope the cashmere/silk/burlap blend doesn’t brush the blackened side-walls of the “forlornucopia”.

There’s anabandoned plastic shop-lifting basket nearby, so I’ve something to haul the goodies home in…and home I weave. The basket is perched precariously on the left side of the handlebar held by my left hand, braking with the right.
It’s a bit of a circus act.

The inner economist/doomsayer reminds me that saving money so “Anathema/Blue Cross” can have more, and flying over the bars owing to nabbing food without using a Proper Bike With Panniers will not pencil out, cost-wise.
I hold my breath a lot.
Then I carefully pull over to the curb, change hands (now my braking hand is the left one, oh, my) and resume wobbling home.
For you, a picture is worth at least a dozen fine dinners, tonight: chicken pot pie without bottom crust. Recipe from NYT. More like a cobbler. Except it’s turkey I’ve got….J’adore turkey.

I have to ask J is it out of necessity that you do this? I think not. That you are off to university and you have a computer and a connection… so.

It has to be one of three other things. Miserliness if that’s a word. I don’t think that’s you. Quirkiness, which is not so bad, or your recycling which is cool and green, which I’m wanting to believe is you.

I am truly envious of all the dumpster-divers who can scavenge FOOD.
Born without olfactory sense — everything just smells like AIR* to me — means that this level of scavenging is simply too dangerous for me to attempt, so I stick to non-edibles.
(*On the plus side, I can’t smell farts, kitty litter or Camas, WA either; so it’s not a total loss).